As a man was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from their bonds but for some reason, they did not.

He saw a trainer nearby and asked why these animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away. “Well,” trainer said, “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”

The man was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were.

Like the elephants, how many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it once before?

Failure is part of learning; we should never give up the struggle in life.

He sat down under the desire tree (there is such tree in the paradise, sitting under which you can immediately fulfil any your desire, you just need to think about it) and thought: “I am hungry, so it would be nice to have a bite right now.” And when he just thought about this, a table full of different dishes that he was thinking about appeared right before him.

Wow! – The man was surprised, – but it can’t be! – He thought so, and the table with dishes disappeared immediately. “It would be nice to get it back!” – And dishes appeared again.

He ate a plenty of dishes – he has never eaten such tasty food before. After satisfying hunger he thought: it would be nice to drink something – and a perfect wine appeared immediately, because there are no restrictions in the paradise.

Lying in the shadow of the tree and drinking wine, he started wondering: Why these miracles do happen? It just can’t be that everything would be so good – probably some ghosts played a joke on me.

Suddenly the ghosts appeared. They were terrible and looked like he imagined them.

Many years ago there were a group of brilliant young men at the University of Wisconsin. The group of men seemed to have an amazing creative literary talent and were extraordinary in their ability to put their literary skills to its best use. These promising young men met regularly to read and critique each other’s literary works.

These men were merciless while they criticized one another. They dissected the most minute of the expressions and offered tough and even mean criticism to each others work. Their meeting sessions became arenas of literary criticism and the members of this exclusive club called themselves the “Stranglers.”

Not to be excluded to the opportunity to level up there literary skills, the women of literary interest in the university started a club of their own, one comparable to Stranglers. The members called themselves the “ Wranglers.” The member of the lub too presented their literary pieces in front of each another. But the feedback from the members were much more softer, more positive and more encouraging. Every effort from a member, even the most feeble one, was encouraged by all.

After twenty years, a university alumnus was doing a study of his classmates’ career when he noticed a huge difference in the literary accomplishments of the Stranglers and the Wranglers.

Among all the brilliant young men in the strangler, none had made any significant literary achievement. But the Wranglers had several successful writers and some renowned national literary talents.

The talent and the education between the two groups were almost the same. There were not much difference. The Stranglers strangled each other while the Wranglers gave each other a lift. The stranglers created atmosphere of contention and self doubt while the Wranglers brought out the best in each other.

A man who has gone out of his town comes back and finds that his house is on fire. It was one of the most beautiful houses in the town, and the man loved the house the most! Many were ready to give a double price for the house, but he had never agreed for any price and now it is just burning before his eyes. And thousands of people have gathered, but nothing can be done, the fire has spread so far that even if you try to put it out, nothing will be saved. So he became very sad.

His son comes running and whispers something in his ear, “Don’t be worried. I sold it yesterday and at a very good price. The offer was so good, I could not wait for you. Forgive me.”

The Father said, “thank God, it’s not ours now!” Then he became relaxed and stood as a silent watcher, just like 1000s of other watchers.

Then the second son comes running, and he says to the father, “What are you doing? the house is on fire and you are only watching it burn?” The father said, “Don’t you know, your brother has sold it.”

He said, “we have taken only advance amount, not settled fully. I doubt now that the man is going to purchase it now.”

Tears which had disappeared came back to the father’s eyes, his heart started to beat fast. And then the third son comes, and he says, “That man is a man of his word. I have just come from him.” He said, “It doesn’t matter whether the house is burnt or not, it is mine. And I am going to pay the price that I have settled for. Neither you knew, nor I knew that the house would catch on fire.”

Then all just stood and watched the house burn without a worry.

Moral: This is a very complicated human nature to describe. Even though person here loved his house which he lost, became relaxed knowing it was not his anymore. He never wanted to give it away till it was beautiful but, as soon as it started to lose its beauty, he didn’t mind letting it go for a profit. Sorrow and Happiness followed after each son came with their advice. But, most important thing to understand is, how his feeling changed. How the ratio of loss and profit changed his feelings towards a house, which he loved the most. This is how in present time we have come to give a priority to our relations and friendship – based on loss or profit ratio. Everyone should understand this story and put their own moral

A carpenter I hired to help me restore an old farm house has just finished a rough day on the job. A flat tyre made him lose an hour of work, his electric saw quit and now his ancient truck refused to start. While I drove him home, he sat in stony silence. On arriving, he invited me in to meet his family.

As we walked toward the front door, he paused briefly at a small tree, touching the tips of the branches with both hands.

When opening the door, he underwent an amazing transformation. His tanned face was wreathed in smiles and he hugged his two small children and gave his wife a kiss. Afterward he walked me to the car. We passed the tree and my curiosity got the better of me so I asked him about what I had seen him do earlier.

‘Oh, that’s my trouble tree,’ he replied. ‘I know I can’t help having troubles on the job, but one thing for sure, troubles don’t belong at home with my wife and the children. So I just hang them up on the tree every night when I come home. Then in the morning I pick them up again.’

‘Funny thing is,’ he smiled, ‘when I come out in the morning to pick them up, there aren’t nearly as many as I remember hanging up the night before.’

I have a choice about today

I woke up early today, excited over all I get to do before the clock strikes midnight. I have responsibilities to fulfill today and I am important. My job is to choose what kind of day I am going to have.

Today I can complain because the weather is rainy or I can be thankful that the grass is getting watered for free.

Today I can feel sad that I don’t have more money or I can be glad that my finances encourage me to plan my purchases wisely and guide me away from waste.

Today I can grumble about my health or I can rejoice that I am alive.

Today I can lament over all that my parents didn’t give me when I was growing up or I can feel grateful that they allowed me to be born.

Today I can cry because roses have thorns or I can celebrate that thorns have roses.

Today I can mourn my lack of friends or I can excitedly embark upon a quest to discover new relationships.

Today I can whine because I have to go to work or I can shout for joy because I have a job to do.

Today I can complain because I have to go to school oreagerly open my mind and fill it with rich new tidbits of knowledge.

Today I can murmur dejectedly because I have to do housework or I can appreciate that I have a place to call home.

Today stretches ahead of me, waiting to be shaped. And here I am, the sculptor who gets to do the shaping.

What today will be like is up to me. I get to choose what kind of day I will have!

Have a GREAT DAY … unless you have other plans and please remember, a ‘Smile’ will make the days go better.

The affection distorts the perception. The Master used to talk about it often. One day his students got an amazing example, proving those words. They heard the Master talking to one mother.

– How is your daughter living?

– My dear daughter! She is so happy. She has a wonderful husband! He gave her a car, bought her jewellery that she dreamed about, hired servants for her. They serve her breakfast in bed, and she stays in bed until noon. He’s not a husband, but a prize!

– And how’s your son?

– My poor boy! He married a real grouch! He gave her everything that she wanted: a car, jewelry, an army of servants. And she is lying in bed until noon! And doesn’t even get up to make breakfast for her husband!

Moral – We always see what we want to see… Our perceptions create our maps of reality. Everyone does what they feel is right. One person’s wrong is other person’s right. Its called perspective.

Once there were two brothers who were great friends and always played together. However, one day they had a huge argument about one of their toys. In the end, they decided that from then on they would only be allowed to play with their own individual toys.

They had so many toys and things that they agreed to spend the next day sorting out which toy belonged to whom. So the next day each brother got to work, making a pile of his own things. When they had finished doing the big toys it was time to sort the little stuff. However, they had already taken so long that it was time for bed, so they left the small toys for the next day. The same thing happened the next day, because they had started dividing up parts of the house.

Day after day it was the same story. They were spending their whole time deciding what, among all kinds of things, belonged to either one of them.
Anything would set them off: seeing an animal, a tree, or even a stone. In the end, they had accumulated two complete mountains of stuff which had to be kept out in front of the house.

As the years passed, nothing changed: every morning they would meet up to argue about which things belonged to whom. They were getting older, and everyone now knew them as “the grumpy old men”. No one had ever seen them smile.

That was, until one morning they went out and found that their two mountains of stuff had been totally mixed up together. Someone had been there, mixing their things up! After all that time and effort they had spent to separate everything!

Furious, the brothers tried to find who had done it. Soon they found a pair of children playing on the other side of the mountains of stuff. They were happily playing together, picking everything up, careless of whether they were mixing it all together. They looked really happy, enjoying themselves to the max.

Seeing the children so happy, the two grumpy old brothers realised how foolish they had been for so many years. They had given up playing with anything, instead spending their whole lives arguing over what was theirs to play with. How sad they felt, for spending their lives in anger. At the same time, though, they were happy to have finally realised their foolishness.

They spent that day, and the rest of their days, playing together with those two children, mixing everything up, and sharing it all. People even stopped calling them the grumpy old men. Now people called them the ‘Big Kids’.